The piano is possibly the most versatile musical machine ever invented. Learn any other instrument and you will often be limited to the number of notes you can play, or the range of sound you can produce. The piano, on the other hand, has unlimited polyphony over a huge scale offering an almost unsurpassed range of emotion, precision and power. So it's little wonder that, for decades, manufacturers have been seeking to create a definitive digital alternative.

But are they any good? Well, that depends. If you really love playing piano there is still nothing, in my opinion, that will beat the experience of using a real one. I would rather play a knackered old upright than a swish digital re-creation of the most expensive Steinway.

My experience of playing digital pianos has always felt rather soulless - the music equivalent of eating a microwaved meal as opposed to cooking one yourself. So if it's a "real piano sound" you're after, unless you are massively constrained by size, weight or price, I would opt for a real one every time.

However if it's "any kind of sound" you're after, that's where things get interesting. Even the cheapest digital MIDI or USB keyboard allows you potential access to a whole new universe.

There are now companies producing lifelike reproductions of everything from Hammond Organs and Fender Rhodes to vibraphones and giant timpani, all playable through a keyboard. For ages I dismissed these sorts of sounds as nothing more than a novelty, but over the past few years the technology has moved on. Specialist producers can now sample every single nuance of an instrument and have it built into a piece of software. One of the best producers of this new wave of sound (alongside people like EastWest and SAM) is a company called Vienna Instruments.

It has a slavishly nerdy attention to detail, recording instruments in studios, taking every single note multiple times. One of its most exciting developments was creating a system called "legato" which recorded not only the notes themselves but the movements between the notes. This gave playing a far more fluid and lifelike form and meant you could create performances of things like flutes and violins.

Ultimately, however, violins were not made to be played on keyboards. Instruments like organs, vibraphones and harpsichords were. This is where the real treasures lie.

The jewel in its crown is the Vienna Konzerthaus Organ, a mind-bogglingly detailed (over 14GB of sound) recreation of a concert hall organ and one of the most amazing things I have ever played on my computer.

While the full version is pricey at £380, it is also partly featured on its Special Edition (full) library, which has every single basic orchestral instrument you need, from chamber strings to baritone sax and glocks. This too, at £625, may seem expensive, but if you already own a decent computer and can cobble together an extra £100 for a MIDI USB keyboard to play it on, it would give you far more enjoyment than a standard digital piano. And to top it off, you won't need to build a concert hall either.